We slid down the embankment and, with the heedlessness of the young, splashed into the murky water. This creek was deeper and darker than those we were used to, emanating the subtle alien-ness of all new experiences. There seemed to me to be a (pun probably intended) darker undercurrent involved. The water was slimy and clogged with debris. A slippery board wedged in the reeds was covered with the sad, red remains of a crayfish, all torn and glistening: probably the remnants of an egret's lunch. But being kids, we just saw the effect without dwelling on the cause. It had all the impact of a sign reading "No Trespassing" -- in other words, it gave us pause for the briefest of moments and colored our emotions (or mine, anyway -- I can't speak for Steve) with a touch of worry. What it didn't do was stop us.

As we splashed on, the water became murkier and deeper. We were thoroughly waterlogged. We hadn't seen anything very interesting; there were no frogs or toads or anything else moving. It was as if the creek were dead, bleached of life by chemicals or choked to death by disease: an area to be avoided. But we were kids -- what did we know? Death was a distant concept, not a reality.

We struggled forward, pushing against the weight of the water; our legs making sloshing sounds as we moved. The water swirled around our thighs.

My foot hit some sort of obstruction. It felt soft, like an old rotten log. I reached my hand down into the water to check, and grabbed a hold of something that felt like a water-soaked, rolled-up newspaper. The only thing breaking the illusion was the fact that there were claws at one end. And toe pads.

I was shaking hands with a dog. An underwater dog, dead and quietly rotting in this murky creek with one paw upraised for a final shake. Maybe its spirit needed that final contact before moving on.

Of course, at the time I was somewhat less philosophical about my discovery. I told Steve and we both got the hell out of that creek as fast as we could, arriving back at the parking lot soaked and shivering.

I can't remember Steve's mom's reaction to our condition. It was probably negative.

As far as encounters with death go, mine was relatively benign. Take for instance the one that Steve had years later when he was framed in some sort of drug deal: I heard that they caught somebody in the act of trying to burn his dismembered body in a field. I hadn't talked to him in over a decade at that point, so his death held less meaning for me than it could have. He was a different person; I was a different person. He was no longer the buck-toothed kid I spent most of my free time with. I'm not sure what he was, or what he had done.

All I know is that he is as dead as the dog in that nameless creek, and that the dog affected me more. Because I touched the dog.
J1(7)